by Lucy Monroe
“Besides, it is not as if you did not have your own plans in that regard.”
Chloe jerked around in her chair to look at Ariston in shock. “What’s he talking about?”
Takis stood. “I will leave you two to talk.”
“Thank you, Pappous,” Ariston said, sounding anything but grateful.
Chloe was just confused. “I don’t understand.”
“The fact your father’s company was on the brink of bankruptcy was not all down to his antiquated views on business.”
“You’re saying you engineered the downfall of Dioletis Industries?” she asked, shock coursing through her.
“With the help of your father’s poor financial choices and my grandfather, though I did not know it, yes.”
“Why?”
“It was necessary.”
“To get revenge against me … or my father?”
Ariston had said he’d been livid about her not sticking to the intent of their contract. And he had to have been beyond furious that she’d walked out on him, though he’d never come right out and said so. But he’d never even hinted he’d been angry enough to bankrupt a company because of it.
“No.”
She ignored his denial. “Was convincing me to marry you again part of your revenge plot? Once our children are born, are you going to manufacture evidence of my infidelity and take them from me?”
“Don’t start imagining scenarios that have no basis in reality,” he said on a teasing note.
“This isn’t funny.” She jumped up from the table, looking wildly around, but seeing no means of escape.
Oh, she could leave the terrace, but she couldn’t run from what she’d heard.
“No, it is not. There. Is. No. Revenge. Plot.” He spoke slowly, emphasizing each word.
But she wasn’t having any of it. “Don’t lie to me. You just as good as admitted to it and your grandfather was honest at least about punishing my father.”
“Pappous had his own reasons for doing what he did. Mine were very different.”
She wanted to believe him, but couldn’t fathom how his words could be true. “What were they?”
“To bring you back into my bed, back into my life.”
“You tore down a company just to get me back into your bed? That’s insane.”
“I do not do things on a small scale.” He was still in his seat, but his entire body seemed to vibrate with tension. “And perhaps in the beginning, revenge played a role in what I wanted—but my revenge was not to hurt you. It was to get you back where you belonged. With me.”
Could she believe him? “You’re every bit as bad as my father. Maybe worse.”
Ariston was up from the table faster than light and coming to her, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Do not say that. It is not true.”
“Really? What would have happened to all those employees you used to manipulate me back into marriage if I had never come to you, if I’d refused?”
“I would have come to you, if I had to.”
“And if I’d refused?”
“You weren’t going to.”
“You couldn’t know that.”
“You are here, aren’t you?” he practically shouted. “I am no fool. I think my plans out carefully before taking action.”
“But even you cannot predict every outcome. And let’s be honest … if I’d refused, you wouldn’t have been too broken up about the dissolution of Dioletis Industries.”
“I would have been broken up all right.” His tone was sincere, his expression grim.
“I don’t understand,” she admitted. If it really was all about getting her back … “Why not just come to Oregon and just ask me out?”
His arrested expression said the thought had not even occurred to him. Her brilliant business tycoon had overlooked the most obvious and easiest course of action. Why?
She stared up at him. “Does the word overkill mean anything to you?”
“I needed to be sure of my success.”
“Why was it so important? Your grandfather,” she guessed.
But even as much as Ariston cared for the old man, she still couldn’t imagine him going to such lengths just to please him.
“No. It was not about Pappous, though I tried to tell myself he was my reason for needing to get you back so badly.”
“He wasn’t?” she asked, hope warring with terror at being disappointed again inside her.
“No.”
“Why, then?”
“I was thirteen when my father divorced his third wife so he could marry a woman he claimed to love. That wife had been the most decent of all his conquests. She cared about my father, she cared about his family … Pappous … me. She tried to kill herself and I found her, blood all over the bathroom.”
“Oh, Ariston. I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head. “My father wasn’t. He convinced her that he loved her and then when he got bored, he left. Like he always did … always will until even his money won’t be able to pull in the beautiful women.”
Chloe put her hands on Ariston’s chest, trying to infuse him with comfort.
He closed his eyes, tilting his head back as if trying to hold in some great emotion. “I vowed then that I would never tell a woman falsely that I loved her.”
“You told Shannon you loved her.”
“And look what that got me. Humiliation and betrayal.”
“I’m not Shannon and you aren’t your father,” Chloe pointed out with fear-spiked optimism.
He took in two deep breaths and let them out before dropping his head and opening his eyes, their cerulean depths filled with an emotion she was terrified to name lest she was wrong. “Saying it was not a positive experience for me.”
“It can be.” She smiled up at him, her eyes filled with tears. “I’ll show you.”
He shook his head. “I should go first. I am no weakling.”
No, but he was a man who had been traumatized by the words. “I love you, Ariston. I never wanted to leave you in the first place and I never would have refused to come back. I love you and I always have.”
“Why the birth control?” he asked starkly, as if the words came from somewhere deep inside him. “If you wanted to be with me, why make sure our marriage was doomed to failure?”
“I wanted you to love me before we had children together and were irrevocably linked.”
“You wanted our marriage to be about emotion, not a contract.” His tone was more subdued than she’d ever heard it.
“Yes, but that doesn’t matter anymore. Regardless of what prompted our marriage, I love being your wife. You have to understand, Ariston, just being with you makes me happy.”
“Being with you makes me happy too.”
“Because?”
“Because I …” His voice choked off and he had to take another deep breath, his cerulean depths suspiciously shiny. “Because I love you. I do, more than I knew a man could love a woman. I can’t stand the thought of you ever leaving me.”
“I won’t.” She made it a vow from the very depth of her soul.
“I’m not like your father.”
“In the important things, no, you aren’t.” And her father had shown that even men like him could change.
“I won’t neglect you or our children for SSE. I have an excellent management team. I don’t have to spend sixty hours a week at my office.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“I want children.”
“I know.”
“But not for Pappous. I want them for us, because I want a little girl with your eyes and little boy who wants to grow up to be a painter.”
“Not a CEO?”
“Can’t we have more than one?” She laughed at that, the joy just spilling out of her. “Let’s let the future take care of itself.”
“I’m not very good at that.”
“I’ll teach you.”
“You’ve already taught me the most important thing.”
&n
bsp; “How to say ‘I love you’?”
“How to love.”
Tears slipped down her own cheeks and she sniffed. “We have a lifetime to get it perfect.”
“It already is.”
“I never thought I’d hear you say you love me,” Chloe admitted in wonder.
“I never thought I’d have the courage.” That admission cost him, even as Ariston showed with his open expression that he didn’t regret making it.
“I left two years ago because I thought you would never love me.”
“Because of the divorce papers.”
“That and the fact you never said the words.”
“Pappous always told me they weren’t necessary.”
“I adore your grandfather, but he’s not always right.”
“Don’t let him hear you say so.”
“I won’t.”
“I love you,” Ariston said again, pulling her even closer, as if trying to meld their bodies.
“I love you so much, Ariston. I have from the very beginning.”
“That’s what you hoped for,” he realized with wonder.
“My love.”
“Yes.”
“You have it. Forever.”
“And always.” Sappy tears burned her eyes, but she wasn’t embarrassed.
Her mom would have approved.
Chloe would never regret having the courage to take a chance on love, even love that seemed hopeless.
“Our children will know love,” Ariston said with great satisfaction.
“Oh, yes … both our love for them, but they will also witness our love for each other and feel safe because of it.”
“It is good for a child to feel safe.”
“And loved.”
“And loved.”
“You are mine, yesterday, today and always.”
“And you are mine, Mr. Tycoon.”
“Even tycoons need love.”
“I always knew that.”
“I didn’t.”
“But you were smart enough to learn.”
“You taught me.” Ariston’s eyes grew suspiciously bright before he lowered his head and kissed her.
When the kiss ended, she was in his arms, cradled against his chest, their breathing labored with passion.
Their gazes locked. “Thank you,” he said with so much emotion, Chloe’s heart squeezed.
She tilted her head up until their lips met again just briefly. “Thank you, for overcoming your fear and loving me.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
She smiled and repeated something he had said to her weeks ago. “We all have choices.”
“Some really are easier to make than others. Like loving you.”
“Like loving you.”
And then he took her to their room and proved once again just how easy and wonderful that particular choice was.
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II BV/S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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First published in Great Britain 2012
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited.
Harlequin (UK) Limited, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
© Lucy Monroe 2012
ISBN: 978-1-408-97449-0
Table of Contents
Cover
Excerpt
About the Author
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Copyright
